Satan's Double Lie

Here is what he, coming as an angel of light, may say to the church:
"The average human being is fairly slow, culturally encrusted. People like things that are palatable and light. So be palatable and light. And for goodness' sake, don't go into the primitive stuff - the blood of Christ or the realities of lostness throughout eternity."

Here's what he says to the uncoverted:
"You're too smart for the gospel. Look at how so many of its trappings are second-rate knockoffs of the real stuff you can find around you in theater, in deeply thought-through books, in higher education. Notice how much more of your mind is demanded even in your daily work than at church. You're ahead the way you are."

So between these two lies he goes about his business. The church buys into the simple-minded smoothed over approach; the world continues its assumption that there is, after all, a certain thinness to Christianity. In the middle of this gulf there stands the Savior, asking both the church and the world for entrance and holding out only one truth to each.

From Best, Unceasing Worship